Well its done! I could not wait any longer for my first ride. Its my day off today, yep I get the middle of the week for my days off. I could see out the window and the roads were clear with no water on the road. We still have snow banks here and air temp. is sticking at 34*F here.
I decide to take the bike out for my first ride. I know that the ride will be limited by the cold air and lack of traction because of cold tires and road surface. I decided to take a ride to the bank to cash a check.
Well the winter has been long and cold here, when I pulled my helmet down from the shelf in the bedroom I could see cleaning was needed. A fine coat of dust and smashed bugs were covering my helmet. I dig my riding coat out of the closet along with the gloves. I notice that bugs also remain on front of my Joe Rocket Busa jacket. But after some cleaning I'm ready to go out to the garage and fire the King up.
When I first got my Busa in 2000 it was my first bike with fuel injection. The Busa had a lever for the choke. This lever on the Busa to my understanding was only to increase motor speed a little when cold and the computer ran the choke. When the Busa was warm you would flip off the choke lever and you would have normal engine speed.
The B-King is different there is no choke lever and its starts as easy and care free as a car. Thumb the starter and the motor comes to life and runs smooth with no fuss. The motor of the B-King is a busa motor and exhaust wise sounds much like my Busa. There is a little more mechanical nose from the B-King motor, but that i think is do to the lack of plastic covering the motor. I have been reading that the first gear from time to time is hard to get into. People have said if you stop put the bike into neutral and let the clutch out then pull in the clutch and go to first they can't get the bike into gear. This would happen at say a stop light, and the quick fix was to roll the bike a little then it would go in. I guess the gears would be a little out of alignment in the transmission. I never had this happen and attempted to cause this to happen with several stops and starts.
I found the transmission to act the same as the transmission in my Hayabusa with a false neutral every once in a great while between 5 and 6th gear. After riding a Busa as long as I have you get to know the feel of the transmission. And when going into 6th and you can tell by the feel when you have to re lift the shifter to hit 6th because of the false neutral. I have found this is not much of a problem and easy to learn to live with because it is rare.
I pulled the bike out onto the road and worked the bike up to speed. At this point I noticed that the gear indicator view is obstructed by the throttle cables. And then I remember reading the same complaint on another write up of the King. Im going to have to fuss with the cables a little if I want to be able to view the number when riding.
The brakes on this bike are great! Much better than my Busa, the stopping power is impressive. Time will tell if this is only because they are new or if the new type of calipers and brake material make the difference.
As for the handling of the bike its turns nice and is not heavy in the front end. It is different setting up straight and rolling on the power, you feel it in your arms more. A little strange after eight years riding bent over the busa. I have yet to whack on her hard I only put eight miles on her. I rolled on her once and took it up to about 75mph on a back road.
I know what your thinking... what about the break in? They say to stay under 5 grand for the first 500 miles. Well all I can say is this.. you may or may not agree. When I got my busa I did the go slow take it easy stay under 5000 and did that for like 300 miles. I stopped at my friends shop and he said "So what have you had her up to so far?" I told him I was following the book. He told me go crank on her by now she is broken in, you can't hurt her! Crank on her and treat her normal she will be fine. The long break in time in steps was meant to accumulate the rider to so much power. Well I ran the bike hard, changed the oil every 3000 and never had a problem. My 2000 Busa is an animal.
So the king is back in the garage 8 miles on, and it feels great. When it warms up and I have several more hundred miles on it we will crank on it and see how the King runs. I will then take the bike to our local 1/4 mile strip and we will see how it does there.
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